The South African rand rallied today after President Jacob Zuma appointed Pravin Gordhan as a new finance minister. He is the third South African finance minister in less than a week.
The appointment of widely-respected Gordhan over the weekend was welcomed by markets, sending the rand higher. The currency has lost almost 9 percent of its value last week, tumbling 5.4 percent versus the US dollar in a single day, after Zuma gave the finance minister seat to relatively unknown David van Rooyen. Earlier this month, Fitch Ratings downgraded the nation’s credit rating to just one notch above the junk grade.
USD/ZAR dropped 4.82 percent to 15.1293 as of 18:41 GMT today.
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